Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Vote

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http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/arbcom — live tally of results

Contents

[edit] Pre-vote comments

I think that the creation of this page was a bit previous. Would it not be better to use the existing candidate statement pages, such as Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2005/Candidate statements/Filiocht, instead? Filiocht | The kettle's on 15:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm confused - I'm a prospective candidate in all this, and now this has turned up! What's going on?! doktorb 16:35, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking we could have another subpage for each candidate's vote so that the transclusion would be easier and the statements and questions wouldn't clutter up the page. We could use the statement pages, though - perhaps use <noinclude> to make only a brief statement appear? Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:40, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

It looks like we won't be using this method, according to the main Elections page. --King of All the Franks 19:25, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I changed it over to point to this since this is the logical way to do things, the page move seems to have broken everyone's subpages though. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 22:54, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remember

someone should remember to add a link to this vote page to the top of the watchlist notice at 00:01 so that people know that voting has started and they know where to go vote. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 23:39, 8 January 2006 (UTC) JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 23:39, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'll do that (I'll probably still be around) Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Withdrawl

I going to be inactive and I don't want to run anymore, and I even opposed myself, could anyone withdraw my statement as I been wanted to withdrawl., Thanks --Jaranda wat's sup 00:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I've protected the page, added comments indicating your withdrawal, and stricken out your links. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statements

Why is the voting separate from the candidate statements? Either this page or the voting subpages should have a link to the statements for each candidate, too. — Omegatron 00:40, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

They do.Geni 00:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Um... that's... very strange. Nevermind. — Omegatron 01:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sentence

I'm not crazy about the following sentence, but I'm not an admin so I can't edit it: You may vote in favour of, in opposition to, or abstain from (i.e. not voting) for any number of candidates. How about this: You may vote in favour of or in opposition to any number of candidates. Not voting for a candidate is equivalent to an abstention. Thanks, Chick Bowen 01:25, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Changed. Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:27, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Chick Bowen 01:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statistics

For what it's worth, there are mostly real-time statistics at http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/arbcom. --Interiot 02:28, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

OMG! That's awesome. —Ilyanep (Talk) 04:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Looks like it caught a case of gremlins and stopping working. I may be able to fix by repairing the offending page. – ClockworkSoul 06:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
This would be great if it worked: only a couple entries upfront are currently displayed properly. Keep it up! E Pluribus Anthony 06:08, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, technical details, the text of the pages are no longer available directly from the database. Should be fixed tonight or first thing tommorow morning. --Interiot 06:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I have a replacement tool, at User:Mathbot/Results. It is a silly script, works every hour only (so not on demand), but might be of use till Interiot fixes his own tool. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 07:08, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Great. I wonder why the candidates are ordered so. E Pluribus Anthony 09:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I sorted them now as Interiot, by percentage of support votes over total votes. I also fixed a bug which was counting neutral votes as oppose, and the bot will upload the new results soon. Seems that my bot's information is a bit more up-to-date than Interiot's tool for the moment, I guess because of the slow server. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:45, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Thought so; looks good. The more information, the better. :) E Pluribus Anthony 06:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Mine's working now. It's now subject to the cache that logged-out users use, but it's not too bad. --Interiot 09:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
It looks great! E Pluribus Anthony 09:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Watchlist

Can we vote to get this annoying thing off the Special:Watchlist and instead, put it on the Special:Recentchanges? ⇒ JarlaxleArtemis 04:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

My vote would be no, actually. We want as many people to be aware of it as possible--fewer people check recent changes than look regularly at their watchlists. Chick Bowen 04:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Agree with Chick Bowen. The watchlist is exactly the right place. The most visible page for editors, and rather invisible to people who do not contribute. About the recent changes, unless you are a vandal fighter, I don't know why you would want to see the recent changes to the last almost one million articles on Wikipedia. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:36, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Agree with these two. Personally, it doesn't bother me, but it might mobilize some people to vote that wouldn't otherwise. And we're looking for the voice of the community here. —Ilyanep (Talk) 04:54, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Keep it on, and keep changing the colour (every day?) ... it will incite Wikipedians to vote who might otherwise be unwilling or unknowing ... strabismus notwithstanding. E Pluribus Anthony 06:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutral votes

Neutral votes are quite deliberately left off as an option: You may vote in favour of or in opposition to any number of candidates. Not voting for a candidate is equivalent to an abstention.. Should it be made more explicit? All a neutral vote is is a long comment, since it has no effect on anything. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 04:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I think there are sufficient notices regarding the non-status of neutral votes and, upon glancing at some vote pages, seems to not be an issue. E Pluribus Anthony 06:06, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Interesting. Are there other instances? In this instance, if I were an Admin: I'd reiterate to those who have so voted that "neutral votes" shall not be counted by Jimbo – only those asserting/dissenting approval, as per point 5 of the election rules/procedure Jimbo has edited. Moreover, as they also contravene point 2 to "vote for or against each individual candidate", they are effectively extra comments that should be moved/removed at Admin discretion ... just as any comment can be – i.e., I agree with you, jpg. Any toleration of such comments on the talk page will foster others to follow suit.
  • And if said Wikipedians are content to abstain, then it shouldn't make a difference if those comments are moved to the talk page instead. E Pluribus Anthony 06:39, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I've also noticed this on SimonP's page; perhaps clarifications/moves are in order? I think some sort of action is necessary. E Pluribus Anthony 07:37, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Just put them to the talk page, as neutral votes were not an option. feydey 08:17, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree: I'm not an Admin (and would prefer if an Admin were to do it); should I do so? E Pluribus Anthony 08:20, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I added a mention of this to the rules just now, feel free to improve upon it; and yes, I think you should move them, you're just as uninvolved as admins are. If you feel uncomfortable with doing so, or if someone gives you a hard time, call me. ;) —Nightstallion (?) 08:46, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks again! I'd only suggest amending the amendment to say they're "not permitted and will be moved to the candidate's vote talk page" or similar. My knees still wobble. ;) E Pluribus Anthony 08:55, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
And, of course, the person put the neutral vote on Tony's vote page reverted, saying it hadn't been discussed. The hell it hadn't. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 15:57, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
11 hours of one-sided comments by 3 people is not "discussion". — 0918BRIAN • 2006-01-9 16:13

Of course neutral votes should be allowed. Many of the votes that resulted in creating the rules for this election included neutral votes. More importantly, the current voting rules (prior to your unilateral insertion) do not say "neutral votes aren't allowed", but that a "neutral vote is considered an abstention." So, the rules endorse the use of neutral votes, not oppose them. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-01-9 16:00

They are allowed ... as comments on the talk page. And as they are abstentions, neutral Wikipedians shouldn't object to the indifference of having them moved. Reverts should be treated as disruptions and dealt with appropriately. E Pluribus Anthony 16:09, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, this rule was unilaterally created/added/enforced in the space of a few minutes. You are applying an opinion to neutral voters and then enforcing a rule based on that unfounded opinion. A neutral vote is not an indifferent vote. And don't bother with this "reverts should be treated as disruptions..." nonsense; I can just as easily say "attempts to bypass discussion and enforce one's own opinion should be treated as disruptions and dealt with immediately". — 0918BRIAN • 2006-01-9 16:15
These notions have been extensively discussed (above and on the ArbComm election talk page), supported and expeditiously implemented by uninvolved parties to ensure propriety and to prevent disendorsements through abstention. Anything else is "nonsense." E Pluribus Anthony 16:24, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Don't bother, I'm not falling for it. The original rules provided for neutral votes by specifically mentioning them and saying they counted as abstention. You're now trying to rewrite the rules and ignoring comments that go against the changes. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-01-9 17:54
You're the one that shouldn't bother. Observe the ArbComm election talk page, where I and others have discussed these and other issues thoroughly: you'll note that any number of us have been involved in writing the rules. And your solitary dissent/reverts, even ignorance of that, is not at all a defence and doesn't obviate any prior discussion/consensus to the contrary. E Pluribus Anthony 18:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Just because you were involved in the original discussion doesn't mean you now get to make up whatever rules you want. You are a volunteer just as much as everyone else, so don't bother with the almighty-enforcer spiel. Jimbo is fine with neutral votes in this election (see his comment below). — 0918BRIAN • 2006-01-9 18:08
My involvement isn't the point: the discussions that numerous Wikipedians have had leading up to this are ... or were. E Pluribus Anthony 18:17, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Neutral votes are important. They show us that someone looked at the page and voted 'neutral'. That's quite different from someone perhaps not even having time to look at the page at all. It can inform others. Therefore they should remain.--Jimbo Wales 18:06, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Jimbo, thanks for weighing in. I don't think the issue is whether they are important (they clearly are), but whether given our discussions they belonged on the vote page. If a significant number of people assert neutrality, whose to opine what those votes mean, with or without comments? Are they, effectively disendorsements? And can they not serve the same informational purpose by being moved to the talk page?
But fair enough – in any event, mea culpa for any offence. However, this is perhaps a learning point for everyone for incorporating or editing rules that more clearly state this from the onset. E Pluribus Anthony 18:17, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm fine with my neutral vote not counting. That's not the point of it. The point of it is to weigh in on the matter. The system has been set up to have neutral votes discounted, but they could easily be set up in a different way, such as splitting each neutral vote as .5 support and .5 oppose, or some other way. Long comments are a different matter entirely, and trying to say that neutral votes are just comments is entirely wrong. If comments aren't allowed, that's fine, but deleting all neutrals, even those without comments, just makes no sense. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-01-9 18:27
Understood. The point throughout was that the system could've been designed any which way, but this and other notions were discussed and common-sense rules arrived at ... overlooking them notwithstanding. :) This was a well-intentioned attempt to address this apparent grey area in the rules and, given prior electoral challenges, to ensure things not run amok. I'm glad that Jimbo has weighed in to clarify matters and trust that we can move forward with this in mind.
To that end, I regret any offence or challenges posed through my comments or actions. Thanks. And now I must sleep. ;) E Pluribus Anthony 18:46, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] All these brand new candidates

All these newcomer candidates makes me think that perhaps I should have thrown my hat into the ring? Oh, well, there's always next year. – ClockworkSoul 06:01, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

You aren't that new buddy, so if that's the main reason, then you are out. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:54, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Heh. Well, I figure I could have made it into the top 10 simply by virtue of the fact that I've been here long enough to know my way around, but not so long as to make too many enemies. – ClockworkSoul 07:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moving comments to talk page

Someone added an excessive, and inappropriate, comment to Kelly Martin's vote page. I'd move it though feel I'm not in a position to do so ... in any event, someone should move it to the talk page. E Pluribus Anthony 07:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal or archiving of snowball-in-heck candidates?

Just wondering, will candidates be removed or archived when it's extremely clear that the nomination cannot possibly succeed? There are currently several candidates with one or two supports and 30-40+ opposes. We do of course want everyone to have their chance, but at some point leaving these candidates up just seems like needless piling-on and might do more harm than good. Also, many of the least-likely candidates are themselves very new and may not fully understand what they were getting themselves into. I do not plan to remove any candidate myself, I'm just throwing the idea out there for consideration. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 15:48, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

My opinion is that these "snowball" candidates should be contacted after the vote has run for 48 hours. At this point, they should be asked if they'd like to withdraw or remain in the election. As for determing which candidates are "snowball-in-heck" candidates, I think that anyone with less than 10% support would qualify. After the vote has run for a full week, the "snowball" candidates should be archived. Carbonite | Talk 15:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I think that nothing would be served in removing/or archiving them: let the election run its full course for all candidates equitably. This will also provide the community and Jimbo with a complete picture that will aid in decision-making regarding the ArbComm. E Pluribus Anthony 16:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that the election has only been going on for 16 hours and there's already some candidates that are being opposed 70-4 or such. Voters who want to avoid pile-ons still have to click on 60+ links to see the vote totals for every candidate. Here a few options I'll throw out:
  • Ask "snowball" candidates to withdraw
  • Archive/remove "snowball" candidates
  • Include vote tallies next to canidate links on the main voting page (updated periodically either manually or by a bot)
  • Move "snowball" candidates to a separate section
Implementing any of these options should wait until the vote has been running for at least 48 hours. The option to withdraw should be made known to all candidates, especially newbies who may be unaware. Carbonite | Talk 16:29, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to mention, I'm one of the people who has voted for those "snowball" candidates. It is akin to saying my vote doesn't count. I agree, let the election run its full course.Davidpdx 20:16, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I haven't seen anyone talk about actually deleting the votes, just recognizing that certain candidates (mainly brand-new users) are being nearly all voters. Once a few days of the election have passed, it's sensible to make modifications so that voters don't have to visit every single candidate's page before seeing if it's a pile-on oppose or not. On RfA, it's possible to see the tally of every nomination before deciding to vote. With this election, you have to visit the individual subpages in order to see the tally. If the tally could be placed on the main voting page, I'd see no problem with keeping the "snowballs" until the end. Carbonite | Talk 20:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
To some extent, that's what things like this and this are for. --Interiot 03:31, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree, I and D. Given Jimbo's position/clarification to include neutral votes, I'm guessing he'd prefer to maintain all candidate votes and pages until the end of the election. This would dually provide voters with a better picture of whom to vote for and allow him to form a complete picture of whom to nominate afterwards ... not one based on arguably selective criteria regarding nascent "snowball" candidates. My two cents. E Pluribus Anthony 06:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inexperienced candidates

I am quite annoyed that I am spending over half my time in this process looking at newbie candidates, many of whom do not have enough time and/or edits here to even vote in this process! I for one strongly call for there to be such requirements for the candidates in future elections. My suggestion is to require at least one year in Wikipedia and 1,000 edits by the date of announcement for nominations to be eligible. --EMS | Talk 21:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree but for a different reason. It's unfair on candidates to have been allowed to nominate to then be dismissed out of hand. Regards, Ben Aveling 22:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Why?Geni 23:25, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I will assume that the above "Why?" is addressed towards to original proposal. New editors
  1. lack the experience in Wikipedia, its processes, and its problems to be good arbitrators,
  2. lack an edit history that can be used to judge their suitability, and
  3. lack any evidence of a long-term commitment to Wikipedia or of the staying power needed to see the aribitrator's job through for its full term.
As a result, more experienced editors like myself will automatically and overwhelmingly oppose them. As Ben noted, this is not fair to them, nor is it fair to those of us who are voluntarily and on our own time participating in this process. --EMS | Talk 23:36, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I was asking why it was unfair to candidates.Geni 23:41, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Nominating, answering all those questions and putting yourself up to be rated by your peers like this is a big investment of time and emotional energy. To then be shot down without a fair hearing, because you are 'obviously' unqualified for the job, well, I know I'd feel hurt if it happened to me. I think most of the inexperienced candidates are well meaning, and looking to make a contribution. If it is absolutely necessary that each and every member of Arbcom is highly experienced, then we should say so up front. Instead, it's why did you bother to show up? It's a bit unfortunate all round. Clearly, there are enough people who hold the view that experience is necessary that it might as well be offical policy and spare everyone the effort. Regards, Ben Aveling 02:14, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree, as I said above I think removing these "snowball" candidates because some people think it is wasting their time seems trival. In addition, I think those who are pushing for removing candidates before the end of the election should look at their own motives behind the idea. If you don't want to vote for the "snowball" candidates then don't, but otherwise let them have their chance. Davidpdx 11:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that once you have let someone into the process that you need to let then stay in it and see it through to its proper end. So I would oppose on fairness grounds any changing of the rules while the process is ongoing, including the removal of "snowball" candidates in the absense of prior rules for doing so. However, do note that I made my suggestion for future elections. The harder that it is to participate in a process such as this, the fewer will do so and the worse off Wikipedia will be for it. There "snowballs" are only bogging down the process, and can by proper rules be easily excluded. I strongly call for the creation of proper candidate standards for future elections. --EMS | Talk 16:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I concur, ems. I think given the plethora of notions and setup required for this year's elections, with the hope of mitigating last year's challenges, some things are bound to slip through (and have). In any event, I think this should be a learning experience for voters and candidates, "successful" or not.
And I took the time to peruse, formulate opinions, and cast votes for each candidate ... so fairness is a matter of perspective. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 16:59, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with both EMS and Ben Aveling. There should be some criteria for not letting newbies run for Arbcom. It's bad for voters and it's bad for candidates. One year, 1,000 edits seems fine. JoaoRicardotalk 20:46, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
While I'm not opposed to having such criteria, one year is far too restrictive. Dmcdevit, currently one of the top runners, would have qualified only by a month; his first edit was on December 2, 2004. Nandesuka (March 27, 2005), Redwolf (April 20, 2005), and Phroziac (June 2, 2005) also currently meet the 50% minimum. —Cryptic (talk) 07:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
While not agreeing myself to any proposed standing criteria (without prejudice to the proposal), I agree with all comments especially regarding to candidates that doesn't qualify for suffrage. An election in the "real world" have candidates requirement that is at least as strong (often stronger) as the suffrage requirement. One of the reason has clearly been shown here, in that those candidate don't stand a chance. We are wasting the time of both the candidates and the voters. -- KTC 00:25, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

It isn't just inexperience, its also the volume of candidates combined with the inability of candidates to succinctly address the office and function to which they're being elected. When I need to form-letter oppose candidates with a statement like "Candidate does not adequately address the nature of arbitration in their candidate statement. In ignorance: I must oppose. With so many candidates, the statement is the extent to which I can engage in becoming an informed voter. Any candidate so contemptuous of the demos as to make it difficult for me to become an informed voter: I must oppose, it bodes poorly for their capacity to take on social responsibility." that's a matter for serious concern Fifelfoo 04:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Display of results

I was, out of curiosity, visiting the voting page... and felt quite surprised to have to visit one page after another to have an idea of results :-( (of course, it makes sense to have individual voting page for each candidate given the amazing number of people interested in doing this rather tiring job). Would there be a way to follow the voting process and to estimate who will be most supported by the community ? Anthere 23:54, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

There is; see http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/arbcom. Do you think we should add a link to that page? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
The results it gives seem to change rather fast in both dirrections.Geni 00:10, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
yes, if accurate, certainly :-) Anthere
I've added some suffrage-checking code just for fun. If you do want to link to the tool more directly, I maybe should move the suffrage checking to a different URL, because it's somewhat error-prone. But the counts themselves should be spot-on now that I made some code changes, as far as I can tell, it's been working well for the past 4 hours. --Interiot 08:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The tool appears to be slightly lagging (down up to 20 votes in my case) but according to the note on the page, it should be cleared up soon. —Ilyanep (Talk) 00:45, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The tool relies upon a mySQL database which is subject to a variable replication lag. In addition, issues of caching will cause it to be a little out of date also. Rob Church Talk 01:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Again, an alternative tool is User:Mathbot/Results. It is run every hour, so there is a one hour lag, but in current conditions seems to be more accurate than the SQL tool (at the moment, Mindspillage has 173 support votes, my tool shows up 172, and the SQL tool 114). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, it should be 100% fixed now, it's now 100% realtime. --Interiot 03:31, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:Z.Spy has withdrawn

Z.Spy has withdrawn his candidacy per this edit in response to a message on talk from freestylefrappe. Is there some special procedure in place for withdrawals, as in should it be done by an admin who has not voted? - BanyanTree 02:45, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


Delt with.Geni 02:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] prospective size of the arbcom

how many people will be in the arbcom? My voting behaviour will depend on that. If the arbcom is large, I will concentrate on opposing people I don't want to see in the arbcom. If it is small, I will concentrate on supporting people I do want to see on the arbcom. dab (ᛏ) 10:46, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

that rather a difficult question to answer while there are 5/6 seats (I can't remeber the exact number off hand) up for election the rate of drop outs that we are likely to get means that all of the top ten have a good chance of ending up on arbcom at some point.Geni 10:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
If you want to focus on where you'll make a difference then I suggest you vote for or against everyone between 5 and 15, as appropriate. Regards, Ben Aveling 11:00, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

There are eight seats definitely up for election. As I read the main election page, there's a possibility that ArbCom might be expanded assuming more people gain majority approval, but it hasn't been decided pending the election outcome. FWIW, I calculate that as of now, the eighth most popular candidate has 77% support, and there are a total of 24 candidates with majority support. David | Talk 16:57, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

where do you get these numbers, short of looking at 65 subpages? Yes, it would make sense to enlarge the arbcom, seeing their backlog. Arbitration is scaleable, you just form several "courts" that take up cases according to their capacity, it wouldn't hurt to have 15 arbitrators, provided they are 15 good, trusted people. dab (ᛏ) 18:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I actually have been looking at 65 subpages, before I noticed that two people have written scripts to do it! (see above). In fact it's interesting to compare what would have happened if the election had been on the old system, when you could only vote in favour of candidates, not against them. One particular candidate, who has a majority against her at present, is in eighth position on the total number of votes in favour. As for enlarging ArbCom, a higher power will take that decision after the election finishes, as I understand it. David | Talk 18:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Date

Those who are able to edit the article, please add links to the dates.

[edit] Time: What is wrong with midnight?

Why do these elections not run from 9 January 2006, 00:00 until 22 January 2006, 24:00 UTC? Since the 24-hour notation is perfectly able to distinguish between midnight at the start and at the end of the day, there is no need to use an off-by-one-minute kludge that is only needed for the U.S.-style 12-hour clock notation. Markus Kuhn 18:52, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Random candidate order for future elections

I'd like to float the suggestion (albeit it may not be in the right place) that for future large candidate list elections such as this, that the name-order be randomised rather than alphabetical. I'm basing this on my own growing fatigue at reading through each of the candidates' statements/questions one after another-- which means the lower down, the more likely the candidate is to be given short shrift-- but also on the real-world research which shows that there is positional bias in elections for candidates with names near the top. California court, for example, held that alphabetical listing was unconstitutional, and the state legislature enacted a requirement for randomisation in 1975. [1] (California Election Code Section 13112)

—LeFlyman 18:39, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The above all apply to situations where you can only vote in favor of the candidate. There doesn't appear to be much of a correlation between alpha bet position and the amount of support you recive at present.Geni 19:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Thank you for pointing out the significant difference. However, the core of my contention is that the order candidates are placed results in decreasing attention for those lower down the list. The Princeton paper noted above found that even randomized, the candidate nearest the top would gain more support/votes, due in part to what they called "cognitive cost": "Our results are largely consistent with... a simple cognitive cost model of voting, where ballot order effects are due to cognitive costs of processing each candidate." Randomization would reduce the benefit of having a Wikipedia moniker which comes earlier in the alphabet-- although it wouldn't answer the benefit of being earlier in a list of candidates. To see if the cognitive cost is an issue here, we would merely need to wait until final results and count the amount of support/opposition comments each candidate has, with a focus principally on "unknown" candidates, and compare those to name position. —LeFlyman 19:34, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
    Actually, the user with the most votes right now is Mindspillage who is about halfway down the list if not further. —Ilyanep (Talk) 20:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
    • The concern would be most visible in lesser known candidates (as I noted above). Wikipedians will naturally respond first to those whose monikers they recognise, and then move onto those whose they don't. Now, whether this really matters (i.e. in terms of "fairness") is certainly a viable question; perhaps unknown candidates don't deserve recognition and no matter how the list is structured, they're not going to get votes anyway. But one might just as well say that this could be likened to a popularity contest, rather than an election based on qualifications, with an intent that all candidates receive equal attention/opportunity.--LeFlyman 20:50, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Users Without Suffrage

Interiot's tool shows some users that may not have suffrage; could some people check up on that? —Ilyanep (Talk) 02:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I've gone through and marked some that the tool had red-flagged. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 02:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:blankfaze withdrew

User:blankfaze have posted a statement of withdrawal on his voting page. Can an admin please update Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Vote and his voting page. -- KTC 04:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Dealt with. —Nightstallion (?) 07:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of inexperienced candidates

I think that it may be helpful to make a list of the inexperienced cadidates, when they joined, the number of edits they had (as of 1/1/06), and the votes that they are getting. I have been thinking of a standard recently of 1 year and 2,500 votes as a qualification for this post. It may be on the high side, but I think that it would be helpful to list all of the current candidates who would fail to fit that bill (as of 1/1/06) and are running. I think that it would do a lot to quantify the need for a standard and help to determine what the standard should be.

I will start the list, but I am looking for the help of others in completing it. Even now I am putting more time into Wikipedia than I should. --EMS | Talk 04:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Inexperiencd Candidates for ArbComm
Name First edit # of editsa Votes forb Votes against
Ajwebb 9 October 2005 130 10 111
Aytakin 24 March 2005 580 9 89
DG 21 September 2004 450 9 89
DoctorMike 4 January 2006 0 10 82
Luckyluke 5 October 2004 250 10 60
Luigi30 8 March 2004c 1,950 17 58
Magicalsaumy 16 October 2005 330 3 59
Maywither 18 November 2005 40 5 70
NSLE 20 September 2005 3,400 26 53
Svartalf 13 November 2004 140 2 49
Terenceong1992 28 January 2005 2,200 5 54
Tznkai 24 May 2005 2,500 22 52
Ultraexactzz 22 December 2005 40 3 68
Z.Spy 6 August 2005 120 1 46
  • Note a: Approximate and as of 1/1/2006.
  • Note b: Votes for and against were as of 04:00, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Note c: Only 1 edit on that date, after which Luigi30 was then inactive until 27 September 2004.

Reminder: This table is currently incomplete.

A possibly better way: Can someone generate a script which would collect this information on all of the candidates? --EMS | Talk 05:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Z.Spy withdrew.[[User:Geni--EMS | Talk 05:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)|Geni]] 13:21, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I know, but it seems to me that including the withdrawn candidates will add data and help to make the case. Z.Spy is very much a part of the pattern that I am trying to document. --EMS | Talk 16:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that what you have done is to demonstrate that there is not a need for the standard that you suggest. Since at least a substantial portion (if not the vast majority) of the votes so far were cast before you posted your table, and the candidates with the lowest number of edits were (and are still) being overwhelmingly defeated, it looks like the "voters" are fully capable of figuring out for themselves who is qualified and who isn't. Just my opinion. 6SJ7 20:52, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
You are missing the point. It is work to go through all of these candidates, and I have been tempted to stop dealing with them. It takes time from other things, after all. Indeed, I am sure that there are others who have given up early or just not bothered with ruling on 68 candidates. That is not good for the process. If there is a rule such that it is a given that someone who does not meet those requirements will be defeated, then those people should not be allowed to run. This makes the process more efficient and encourages greater participation. --EMS | Talk 05:10, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Awfully quick to judge, sir. What's your definition of inexperience? Your first edit is 3/22/05 (according to editcount) with only 645 article edits since. There are users in your "inexperienced" list with less time on Wikipedia and far more non-social (editing) contributions. - Emt147 Burninate! 06:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I think a salient analysis and evaluation can and should occur after the election, not amidship. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 08:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A preliminary analysis

From what I am seeing, the number of edits is more important than time in Wikipedia, although a shorter presense is a genuine hinderance. There is a gap between having 600 edits and having almost 2,000. The editors below this gap are all being totally panned. OTOH, the editors above the gap are generally doing much better, having a significantly higher percentage of support. (The exception, Terenceong1992, is a 13-year-old who could not make up his mind about running.) However, even the people above the gap are not serious contenders for "winning" this election, and all are losing support due to the brevity oftheir time in Wikipedia. --EMS | Talk 05:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A comparison point

Mindspillage, one of the most popular candidates, joined Wikipedia on 22 June 2004, and had ~7,500 as of 1/1/06. IMO, this argues against an edits threshhold higher than 2,500 edits, although addition qualifications (such as a age-of-account and/or having admin status) may be appropriate. --EMS | Talk 17:38, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Withdrawn candidates

I'd propose to not only strike them out and replace their candidate statements, but also place them on the very bottom of the table and page. Your thoughts on this? —Nightstallion (?) 07:16, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Not a bad idea, but right now there are only 5 such candidates out of the 68 who started out in the race. I don't see a whole lot of value in the change at this time, but if people keep dropping out it will become helpful. (One suggestion though. I would but the withdrawn candidates in a seperate list just below the primary one to make in clear what thier status is.) --EMS | Talk 16:39, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I'll do this, then, since you are in favour and noone seems to be against it. —Nightstallion (?) 08:00, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Any chance of recording when each person dropped out? I come back to the vote page occasionally, and for the life of me I can never remember which 'drop out' notices I'd looked at before. Purely for 'soap opera' value, of course! --kingboyk 21:07, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
They are. Scroll down to the bottom of the main vote page (with the listings of all the candidates), and you'll come to the section for withdrawn candidates. Although they're listed alphabetically, the dates in which each one withdrew are listed. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:09, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Cheers. I also realised I could use the Page History. Doh! --kingboyk 09:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Candidates voting for themselves

One candidate has recorded a vote supporting themselves, citing the fact that it's not actually prohibited. I don't know if this situation had been thought about before the election. David | Talk 15:59, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

It was: there were arguments for and against it (enfranchisement) vis-a-vis the notion of a candidate voting for oneself being frowned upon during RfAdmin votes. It was decided (without consensus) to not include this in the election rules ... which I don't agree with. Now ...
Is there anything that can be done about it now? Given the neutral vote issues/ambiguities earlier, perhaps Jimbo should be consulted if it's truly contentious (and he was instrumental in resolving the nuetral vote issue)? In any event, it needs to be clarified for next year. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 16:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
It wouldn't hurt to clarify this point for next year, but one vote isn't going to make any difference. All of the top candidates are going to have 150+ total votes cast, in which case one vote is insignificant. Carbonite | Talk 16:19, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I say to let things be. I saw that too, laughed at it, and considered it to be strike against the candidate. In other words, I firmly believe that any candidate that would avail themselves of this option loses more votes than they gain, making it quite fair IMO. --EMS | Talk 16:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
That's what I was thinking when I saw it. —Ilyanep (Talk) 17:19, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm glad that you agree with me, but your refusal to express your opinion on the other candidates is in its own way just as bad. It is as if you are looking to "pad" your total by not giving anyone else your own support. (I admit that you are not dragging them down either with opposition, but I doubt that you would oppose someone without good cause, and that can tell people useful things both about yourself and about the person you oppose.) --EMS | Talk 20:38, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
It could only be called padding if I voted for myself and nobody else, otherwise it's as if I'm neutral on everyone. I just don't feel comfortable having votes out there at this time, and it may cause problems if I do eventually get elected. —Ilyanep (Talk) 21:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd agree with that, C/EMS. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 16:37, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Quite an interesting situation! Have to say that it didn't take me long to decide that voting for myself in this election was inappropriate, which I subtly hinted at when explaining my other votes. I guess in the December 2004 election with secret ballots, probably most candidates voted for themselves. However EMS makes a very good point. David | Talk 17:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • As per Carbonite, I'd imagine the effect of a self-vote is negligible (or as EMS noted potentially detrimental). Lest we forget that this isn't an election per se, but an advisement for appointment by Jimmy Wales. As he has the last word, the specific count of support "votes" isn't critical. —LeFlyman 18:47, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I assume that this was in reference to me. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 20:13, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I haven't gone through everyone yet, and don't generally look at who voted for who specifically, but I know there's more than one candidate that have voted for themselves. It might, or might not be in reference to you. I'm sure comments applies generally. -- KTC 21:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't think it would matter. In the very very unlikely event that a candidate squeaks by based on their own vote, Jimbo would just make a judgement call. Since we're relying on Jimbo to make plenty of judgement calls anyway, this shouldn't be an issue. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 21:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:Mikkalai withdrew

Candidate have withdrew. KTC 20:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

All of the links and such have been taken care of. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 20:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Candidates revising their own candidate statements during voting

Should candidates be able to alter their candidate statements on the voting pages now that voting has commenced? I'm talking about substantial edits, changes in viewpoint, etc, not just a comma here and a spelling correction there. If so, should there be a notice that the candidate statement has been significantly altered? Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 21:28, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it is too late to say no.Geni 21:55, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Agreed; this is a wiki, after all. And if changes are substantial, hopefully Wikipedians will ID them and decide accordingly ... and this includes Jimbo. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 21:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Agree with ^^. I think that if someone totally changes viewpoints they'd get quite a few oppose votes for that ("what are you hiding/trying to do?"). —Ilyanep (Talk) 04:27, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Withdraw

My interest in ArbCom was from the standpoint of editorial challenge of reconciling differing viewpoints to produce a quality multi-faceted article. It is my impression that I grossly underestimated the social and political aspects of ArbCom as well as grossly overestimated the aforementioned editorial drive for quality encyclopedia above all else. As such, I am no longer interested in the position and wish to withdraw my candidacy.

I appreciate the support votes as well as all the feedback from oppose votes -- it really helped me understand where my opinions fit in the Wikipedia community. Apologies if my editorial activism and anti-free speech abuse conservatism have offended anyone. Good luck all! - Emt147 Burninate! 06:23, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Taken care of. —Nightstallion (?) 07:58, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Only admins should be arbs?

In the light of the matter of inexperienced candidates discussed above, it may be worth considering to allow only administrators to become arbiters. This seems reasonable considering that:

  1. Adminship is a matter of community trust and is said to be no big deal. ArbCom membership is a matter of greater community trust and is a big deal.
  2. To my best knowledge, we never in the past had any arbiters that weren't admins.
  3. It would be impractical to have arbiters that lack e.g. the ability to view deleted article history.
  4. In the present election, no candidate that is not an admin has more than 31% support, and only two (Edivorce and Sam Spade) have more than 20% support.
  5. Conversely, in the present election, every candidate with less than 20% support is not an admin.
  6. People wishing to become arbiters can easily run for adminship a few weeks before an ArbCom election anyway, as that takes only a week with minimal bureaucracy.
Should at least be considered, in my opinion; that doesn't mean I endorse it 100%, though. —Nightstallion (?) 14:18, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
What you've said is reasonable, but I don't see a need to allow or disallow anything. To me these facts indicate that so far, only admins are likely to become arbitrators. If that condition changes, we won't want a rule about it, and if the condition doesn't change, we don't need a rule about it. Friday (talk) 14:22, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with F. TGIF! :) E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 14:30, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I will say, however, that I believe we have had a non-admin arbiter (I forget who, but it was brought up last time someone discussed this). Ral315 (talk) 17:51, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
User:Gutza was appointed by Jimbo, but was never an admin on en (though he was an admin on the Romanian wikipedia). Carbonite | Talk 18:02, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Is not the point here, as has been made in some votes by Fifelfoo, that reading through 68 different candidate statements and questions takes some time, and especially so when a significant number were no hope candidates? In other words, would it not increase participation in the vote if non-admins were either disqualified, or (if this is considered harsh) speedily identified as such, so that voters can concentrate on the more obviously eligible? I'm just tossing this suggestion into the mix, don't know whether it's viable. David | Talk 15:48, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
This was discused over the summer. I think there was a fiarly solid consensus of no.Geni 15:55, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with David that 68 candidates were a bit too many, especially when a fair amount were very inexperienced. I think it would be reasonable to require some sort of minimum qualifications to run for ArbCom. Being an admin could be one of the ways to qualify, but not the only way. We could allow other means such as a petition or judgement by a bureaucrat. The purpose wouldn't be to keep out people who are simply unlikely to win (such as controversial editors), but instead to limit the field to those who won't be opposed by 90%+ of the voters due to inexperience. Carbonite | Talk 16:15, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Carbonite in return, and just want to add that I've no doubt most of the plainly inexperienced candidates who stood were doing so in good faith and simply did not realise that they had no real chance of winning. Receiving so many 'oppose' votes may well put them off coming back to Wikipedia (no-one can have that thick a skin not to be affected), despite the efforts of some voters to cushion the blow by explaining that no personal slight was meant. In other words, although not intending it, the community has trespassed on biting the newbies. David | Talk 16:21, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
From my quick count of the table above, it appears that seven of the candidates did not have suffrage because of low edit counts or recently created accounts. As a minimum, I would assume that candidates should be eligible to vote for themselves. I'm not against higher standards, but would like to hear if there is any opposition to making "must be eligible to vote" a baseline standard for candidacy. - BanyanTree 18:23, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Without neccesarily supporting this, I do think we need some minimum standard to cut down on the wasted time surrounding hopeless candidacies. Dragons flight 16:10, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Another possibility would be to remove candidates with less than X% support 48 hours after the election begins. The value of X should be low, perhaps around 10-15%, but that would still remove the bottom 20-25 candidates, and allow voters to spend more time considering the remaining candidates. Carbonite | Talk 16:22, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I am trying to construct a table of the "inexperienced" candidates above, although I wonder if is should not cover all candidates. I am quite convinved from what I am seeing in that there is a threshold of experience with Wikipedia such that a candidate is not viable otherwise. The sense that I am getting is that time is much less important than the number of edits. Perhaps a standard of having made 5,000 1,000 edits as an administrator (plus currently being an admin) would work.
I see nothing wrong with there being serious criteria for being able to run for this job. The top vote getters are people who have been very active, present for an extended and fairly non-controversial. Arbitrator is a serious position in Wikipedia. It should be a no-brainer that people who are not current admins, are not of long standing, and/or are not regular, active Wikipedians not only cannot win a post like this, but should not. Indeed, being an admin gives people a record of how they use their power that makes it much easier to judge what kind of arbitrator they would make, and those who cannot become admins or have lost their admin privilages are most likely those who would not make a good arbitrator. --EMS | Talk 17:17, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
P.S. I changed my crtieria above after finding the Mindspillage had only ~7,500 edits as of 1/1/06. That makes the use of the higher standard inappropriately prohibitive to potentially good candidates. Indeed, I now think more than ever that we need to somehow gather relevant stats of all of the candidates to get a good sense of what truly distinguishes the obviously unacceptable from those who do deserve a chance. --EMS | Talk 17:44, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • As a middle ground, it would be easy to add columns to the "vote here" table stating whether the user is an admin or not, how many months since the user registered, and how many edits the user has. That's roughly what the Signpost has been doing. While in most cases editcount or account age should not be solid grounds for supporting or opposing someone, users may want to use this data to set their personal "minimum bar". Radiant_>|< 17:53, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Now that I know about the Signpost articles, I will use them and the vote-counting scripts to update my table. I don't know if this is the time to update the vote page, but what I want is some sense of what qualities the more successful candidates have so that we can discuss whether those are appropriate criteria for candidacy. --EMS | Talk 14:45, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vote duration

In the light of future elections, could someone please create statistics as to how many people vote on each day of the election, and how the candidates change? It seems to be the case that the results do not significantly change after the first day. Not that I would recommend holding an election for a single day, but it may be interesting to know whether there's actually a point in using two weeks rather than one (and I seem to recall some people suggesting the election last even longer). Radiant_>|< 17:53, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

The election has already been open several days and as I've only managed to view and vote on ~43 of 68 candidates (users Ajwebb - Maywither, inlcuding all but one of the now-withdrawn users in this range) and I'm spending about 50-75% of my Wikipedia time on this. And I shouldn't have spent as much time on it at work as I have. Also, remember Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Ta bu shi da yu 2 - things can change. IMHO 9 days starting on a Saturday is the minimum time we should have - allowing a full week and two weekends when many people will have more time. Thryduulf 00:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
while I don't think anyone has crossed the 50% barrier there have been a fair number of chnages in position at the top.Geni 09:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Of the viable candidacies, a couple have changed by greater than 5% during the last 72 hours, which as Geni points out does lead to some shuffling of the order. Dragons flight 14:49, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
You can compare the order using the Mathbot results table archive. David | Talk 16:18, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Voting Restrictions

I've made well over 150 edits, but only created my account on November 13. Does this REALLY mean I'm barred from voting, because I do want to vote!--M W Johnson 04:51, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Sadly, yes. You can still express your support for/opposition to candidates if you just want to fly the flag. Just make sure that you do so with an indent so that the numbering is unaffected. Regards, Ben Aveling 05:28, 13 January 2006 (UTC) (I have > 1000 edits myself, but I registered Oct 23, so I know where you're coming from)

[edit] dogbreathcanada withdraws

So that people don't have to keep opposing me and can concentrate their reading on people who might actually win, I shall withdraw from the race. It has been a beneficial experience. Thanks everyone for the comments. --Dogbreathcanada 21:30, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Done, and thank you for your enthousiasm. Happy editing! Radiant_>|< 22:16, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Votes valid?

Interiot's Tool flagged an interesting case: Pintele Yid (talk • contribs). This user had less than 150 edits as of the start of the election (00:01 January 9) but made 34 edits during the day, starting at 02:31 and ending at 03:30. Those edits brought him/her across the 150 edit threshold. While the rules/instructions seemed pretty explicit (number of edits at the start of the elections), I'd thought I would bring it up here. I've tagged all her votes for now. Thoughts on this? My personal opinion is to not grant suffrage, as the instructions say at the start of the election. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:16, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

  • My interpretation is also that it's 150 edits at the start of the elections. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 23:25, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:59, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Complete candidate statistics

I finally have a complete set of statistics. What I did was to take the mathbot results as of 1/13/06 11:00am EST, and added in the data found in the Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-01-09/ArbCom_update articles. The resultant table is:

Support Oppose % Support Date of first edit # edits Date made Admin.
1 Mindspillage 236 16 93.65 June 22, 2004 7697 April 18, 2005
2 Filiocht 181 14 92.82 August 5, 2003 9870 January 4, 2004
3 Charles Matthews 200 21 90.5 February 25, 2002 52379 February 17, 2004
4 SimonP 151 16 90.42 December 10, 2001 87718 December 21, 2003
5 Morven 102 16 86.44 February 17, 2003 10921 January 26, 2004
6 Dmcdevit 148 29 83.62 December 2, 2004 8559 July 24, 2005
7 Sam Korn 89 26 77.39 October 8, 2004 7581 April 24, 2005
8 Jpgordon 100 31 76.34 September 4, 2004 7850 November 26, 2004
9 James F. 141 44 76.22 27 February 2003 12571 before 7/2003
10 Improv 99 31 76.15 December 3, 2002 3729 February 19, 2005
11 Mackensen 67 21 76.14 August 24, 2003 6660 September 30, 2004
12 Dbiv 114 41 73.55 March 27, 2004 7520 January 20, 2005
13 Ilyanep 115 43 72.78 May 7, 2003 4613 June 17, 2003
14 Fred Bauder 199 77 72.1 February 28, 2002 9650 before 7/2003
15 Nandesuka 79 36 68.7 March 27, 2005 4510 September 15, 2005
16 Jayjg 170 78 68.55 June 15, 2004 31720 September 13, 2004
17 Golbez 69 35 66.35 March 14, 2004 19514 September 29, 2004
18 Redwolf24 100 51 66.23 April 20, 2005 11445 July 23, 2005
19 Merovingian 113 58 66.08 November 9, 2003 18047 March 16, 2004
20 Phroziac 86 60 58.9 June 2, 2005 3295 September 6, 2005
21 Kim Bruning 92 66 58.23 November 7, 2001 5469 August 4, 2004
22 PZFUN 42 34 55.26 June 15, 2004 6349 December 12, 2004
23 Ral315 61 50 54.95 September 30, 2004 7126 September 10, 2005
24 Mailer diablo 54 53 50.47 November 8, 2004 12388 March 31, 2005
25 Tony Sidaway 46 58 44.23 November 26, 2004 23452 March 11, 2005
26 Kelly Martin 133 177 42.9 December 27, 2004 7504 June 15, 2005
27 Jtkiefer 47 69 40.52 May 29, 2005 8109 August 30, 2005
28 Kingturtle 36 56 39.13 November 26, 2002 22669 before 7/2003
29 AntonioMartin 42 81 34.15 September 16, 2002 17680 before 7/2003
30 Tznkai 28 55 33.73 May 24, 2005 2715 January 6, 2006
31 NSLE 30 59 33.71 September 20, 2005 3658 December 10, 2005
32 Ronline 26 53 32.91 October 30, 2004 3206 December 2, 2005
33 Blankfaze 42 89 32.06 April 3, 2004 9236 July 6, 2004
34 Edivorce 35 75 31.82 December 10, 2005 25  
35 Mikkalai 31 70 30.69 November 13, 2003 50517 February 2004
36 Snowspinner 62 141 30.54 April 18, 2004 8522 July 31, 2004
37 Sam Spade 55 135 28.95 November 4, 2003 31573  
38 Everyking 59 148 28.5 February 13, 2004 68945 May 10, 2004
39 Karmafist 51 140 26.7 August 9, 2004 8327 October 11, 2005
40 Ingoolemo 17 49 25.76 May 27, 2004 9227 June 7, 2005
41 Luigi30 20 63 24.1 March 8, 2004 1952 December 9, 2005
42 Silverback 16 78 17.02 September 30, 2004 5744  
43 Luckyluke 11 66 14.29 October 5, 2004 371  
44 DoctorMike 14 86 14 January 4, 2006 37  
45 Ajwebb 17 127 11.81 October 9, 2005 132  
46 Trilemma 7 56 11.11 August 3, 2005 617  
47 Aytakin 12 96 11.11 March 24, 2005 607  
48 Netoholic 14 115 10.85 June 28, 2004 14950  
49 DG 10 102 8.93 September 20, 2004 482  
50 Kitch 6 64 8.57 December 11, 2004 3776  
51 Terenceong1992 5 54 8.47 January 28, 2005 2645  
52 Emt147 6 76 7.32 November 1, 2005 664  
53 Doktorbuk 6 77 7.23 August 4, 2005 988  
54 Skyscrap27 5 68 6.85 January 5, 2006 88  
55 Rowlan 4 58 6.45 November 9, 2005 267  
56 RomaC 4 58 6.45 November 11, 2005 73  
57 Maywither 5 73 6.41 November 18, 2005 43  
58 LawAndOrder 7 106 6.19% January 6, 2006 18  
59 KyleHamilton 4 62 6.06 October 3, 2004 128  
60 Magicalsaumy 4 65 5.8 October 16, 2005 380  
61 Ultraexactzz 4 74 5.13 December 22, 2005 39  
62 Guapovia 4 79 4.82 December 15, 2005 40  
63 SVera1NY 3 60 4.76 June 13, 2005 210  
64 Dogbreathcanada 4 93 4.12 October 30, 2005 144  
65 Quaque 2 55 3.51 November 21, 2005 1480  
66 Svartalf 2 57 3.39 November 13, 2004 206  
67 Z.Spy 1 56 1.75 August 6, 2005 118  
68 Aranda56 0 22 0% August 20, 2005 6261  

I did a several analyses on this data, looking for a criteria that would eliminate non-contenders fairly quickly. Interestingly, the one that really leaps out is Radiant's suggestion to require that candidates already be administrators. That would eliminate 29 candidates right off the bat, including the last 27. The highest ranked non-admin is ranked 34th in approval out of 68. So this looks like a very viable criteria.

A variation on this is to require that a candidate be three months an admin. That would eliminate 34 of the 68 candidates, with the highest ranked user affected being Tznkai, currently ranked 30th with 33.8% support. However, I would not go higher than 3 months for administrator experience, since you start working your way rapidly up the rankings after that.

I thought about other types of restrictions to use in addition. The ones that were attractive to me are time on Wikipedia and number of edits. However, the criteria I would use in those cases (6 months is the Wikipedia and 2,500 edits) seem to corrolate with being an admin for 3 months anyway. Indeed, there are several examples of non-admins who meet the other criteria but have < 15% support.

I plan to update this table after the election are closed. However, I don't expect the gist of it to change. One final note: In hindsight, what got to me in this process was not there being 68 candidates, but hitting person after person who obviously did not deserve a chance at the job1. That kind of thing discourages participation, which is why establishing some kind of prerequisites for candidacy is so important. --EMS | Talk 05:38, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Note 1: By "did not deserve" I meant due to obvious lack of experience. Certainly someone like User:Everyking, who was strongly opposed, still deserved the chance to try. (I could see prohibiting him from running if he had been stripped of his adminship, however.) --EMS | Talk 17:55, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Great table! Technical question: did you do some kind of scripting wizzardry to add the extra data to the table, or was it done by hand? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:45, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
It was done by hand. Scripting was tempting until I found out about the Signpost articles. With the data readily available I concluded that it was less work and bother than scripting (although I should at some point try my hand at it since I am a software engineer by trade). Note the since I used the Signpost, the data in as of 1/1/06 as I aimed for above. Obviously a script would be able to give me those numbers. --EMS | Talk 17:55, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Excellent work, EMS. Radiant_>|< 11:26, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
    Thanks. --EMS | Talk 17:55, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the great work. Just one note of clarification: prior to 2003 actually means prior to RfA records being kept, with votes conducted on the mailing list. RfA was started in early July of 2003, so some candidates may have been granted adminship actually in 2003 but before WP:RfA was started. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:46, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
    Which is why the signpost lists me as being before 2003, while I was in 6/2003. I was promoted a month before rfa was created. Aah...good old times :) — Ilyanep (Talk) 22:20, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Yes, I realized that my wording was a little ambigious (see the talk page of the first article), so if I remember correctly, I added a notice to the lead section clarifying that. I apologize for any confusion; I'll be sure to be more specific next time. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:43, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I will change the entries to "before 7/2003". Thanks for letting me know about this. --EMS | Talk 03:40, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I certainly hope no 'adminship' requirement is ever imposed. On one hand, adminship should be no big deal, so anyone sensible enough to be on the arbcomm should be suitable for adminship; on the other hand, some excellent users decide not to become admins for philosophical or other reasons. Something like "any user who has been an admin for three months can list himself for candidacy; other users must collect 20 supporting signatures to run" would cut out those at the bottom of the list and directly, rather than indirectly, require that a candidacy be viable to some other editors. +sj + 23:18, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Progression

People interested in more statistics can take a look at Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_January_2006/Progress, which shows the MathBot results for each day and is thus useful for finding out how support for candidates has waxed or waned during the progress of the election. Feel free to edit it if you e.g. wish to boldface major changes, or strikeout withdrawn candidates. Radiant_>|< 15:21, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Is there anyone else here from Oxbridge who thinks that the order could interestingly be displayed rather as the results of the bumping races are? David | Talk 16:45, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I think that what Dbiv is talking about, for those of us to whom it's not obvious, is something like this: [2]. However, I can make neither head nor tail of that chart, so lord knows. Chick Bowen 23:03, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
They do spend a term teaching you how to understand them, you know ;-) David | Talk 00:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I think he is simply refureing to a scatter plot of percentage against time for each candidate.Geni 23:18, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Wow...that chart makes sense! It'd take forever to make though. — Ilyanep (Talk) 00:57, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  • GnuPlot is your friend. Radiant_>|< 03:13, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How does one judge "the winner"?

A candidate with 100 votes and 80% support has 80 supporters. A candidate with 200 votes and 70% support nearly twice as many supporters. Because the usual charts seem to emphasize proportion of vote, but the only important cut-off seems to be number of votes, I produced an alternative listing that lists candidates in descending order of votes, for those candidates with more than 50% of votes for support. I sorted scraped the screen from interiot's page at around 0400, Jan 15 (lag was at that time said to be about 12 hours) and then sorted them numerically and applied the cutoff by the following shell command:

$ sort -r -n -k 6 -t '(tab)' votes |awk -F'(tab)' '{if ($5 >= 50) print;}'

(tab) above represents the ascii HT character.

The results. compiled for the fun of it:


interiot Candidate Support Oppose % support Total
14 Fred Bauder 209 77 73.08 286
1 Mindspillage 247 16 93.92 263
16 Jayjg 175 82 68.09 257
3 Charles Matthews 207 22 90.39 229
2 Filiocht 189 13 93.56 202
12 James F. 145 49 74.74 194
18 Merovingian 125 61 67.20 186
6 Dmcdevit 151 30 83.43 181
4 SimonP 162 18 90.00 180
13 Ilyanep 127 43 74.71 170
11 Dbiv 124 41 75.15 165
19 Kim Bruning 95 69 57.93 164
21 Phroziac 87 66 56.86 153
60 Redwolf24 100 51 66.23 151
9 Jpgordon 104 31 77.04 135
10 Improv 103 32 76.30 135
5 Morven 112 17 86.82 129
8 Sam Korn 97 28 77.60 125
17 Nandesuka 84 41 67.20 125
22 Ral315 64 51 55.65 115
15 Golbez 79 36 68.70 115
23 Mailer diablo 56 56 50.00 112
7 Mackensen 78 21 78.79 99
20 PZFUN 47 35 57.32 82

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tony Sidaway (talk • contribs) 04:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

  • I believe Jimbo will be the final judge of who "the winners" are, previously indicating a general desire to "to always appoint candidates approved by the community as a matter of convention, while reserving the right to refuse to seat any particularly problematic candidates." I'd imagine that all of the candidates who've garnered supermajorities of support have also garnered (or will, by election's end) a considerable number of votes (100 or more) ... far more than any RfAdmin. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 04:58, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Hmm...that puts me in pos. #10 as opposed to #13 when sorting by percent. But in the end it's like E. says; Jimbo gets the final say, so statistics are just there to inform. — Ilyanep (Talk) 05:22, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  • BTW, why does it say 'interiot' in the column header over the position numbers? — Ilyanep (Talk) 05:24, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Does anybody remember from the previous arbcom election by what criterion people got sorted? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 07:15, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

In the previous election, there were no 'Oppose' votes and candidates were chosen in order of the number of positive votes they got only. It's interesting to note that Kelly Martin, who has withdrawn, would probably be among the winners if this system had continued. David | Talk 10:25, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Well, yes. But this system has the advantage of pointing out users that are heavily controversial. It's okay to have controversial editors, but they really should not be on the ArbCom; this is about the same reasoning why we don't require an RFA candidate to have, say, 50 supporters. So percentages are really the fairest way to go. Radiant_>|< 10:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh just for a laugh here's an updated version of the table above. The new column, S-O, indicates support votes minus oppose votes, and was added to User:Interiot's software after I created the original table. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:20, 19 January 2006 (UTC)


interiot Candidate Support Oppose % support Total S-O
14 Fred Bauder 233 85 73.27 318 148
2 Mindspillage 278 24 92.05 302 254
15 Jayjg 196 89 68.77 285 107
3 Charles Matthews 233 27 89.62 260 206
1 Filiocht 209 17 92.48 226 192
11 James F. 162 54 75.00 216 108
18 Merovingian 141 70 66.82 211 71
6 Dmcdevit 169 36 82.44 205 133
4 SimonP 176 23 88.44 199 153
13 Ilyanep 142 50 73.96 192 92
19 Kim Bruning 113 76 59.79 189 37
10 Dbiv 141 47 75.00 188 94
21 Phroziac 92 79 53.80 171 13
9 Jpgordon 116 38 75.32 154 78
57 Redwolf24 100 51 66.23 151 49
12 Improv 112 39 74.17 151 73
5 Morven 128 19 87.07 147 109
7 Sam Korn 111 33 77.08 144 78
17 Nandesuka 94 46 67.14 140 48
20 Ral315 75 60 55.56 135 15
23 Mailer diablo 69 65 51.49 134 4
16 Golbez 85 41 67.46 126 44
8 Mackensen 92 29 76.03 121 63
22 PZFUN 55 48 53.40 103 7

[edit] Comparative Statistics

Could Danny and so forth tell us whether the result was fairly unchanged after the first few days in last year's election, or whether it was not. Could they also tell us whether most voters voted on the first day, or whether it was spread out fairly evenly across the election?

I.e. how does non-secret voting (as this year) compare to secret ballot (as last year)?

Are there any conclusions we should draw from this (whatever it turns out to be)? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by -Ril- (talk • contribs) 18:31, 15 January 2006.

I signed below, if you notice. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 19:29, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I think analysis of this is premature seeing as the elections are still ongoing. Once the elections are complete I think looking at the voting patterns would be very interesting - graphs of voting rate would be interesting, as well as support:oppose ratios for people over time (I'm assuming that's what you man by "fairly unchanged"). Interiot's written a useful script which shows the current vote count already and I'm sure further such analysis will be done. I'm not sure how you would compare secret voting and public voting simply; without asking people whether they refrained from voting because it was open (I know UninvitedCompany has already made a statement announcing he's not voting because of the procedure) it's going to be difficult to do this. Talrias (t | e | c) 18:38, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
True, but there was discussion somewhere above that the election seems somewhat staid after the first day or so. I was wondering whether the fact that people can see the votes that have already been made had anything to do with this, an effect that many pundits view certain real-world elections to suffer. --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 19:29, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why is this election not publicised at the top of every page?

Last year's election had a notice that appeared automatically at the top of every page (in the same way as Jimbo's personal appeal) telling people about its existance.

How many users are there in wikipedia? Its certainly something in the thousands; 200 isn't remotely near a quorate, its a small minority of the community. Specifically, the members of the community that always hang about the arb com pages, or know the people in the election. A clique, cabal, call it what you will, it does not represent the community; most editors do not hang around these pages.

Not telling the masses about an election is a very good way of stitching up the result. It's gerrymandering. It isn't right, and it looks very much like an attempt to rig the election by choosing the electorate.

--Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 18:31, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

It's mentioned at the top of every user's watchlist (unless your like me and blocked it using your css file) and at the village pump and the signpost. The reasoning behind this is that it's a community thing not an encyclopedic one so there's no need to have it on every page. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 19:32, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
That would be true of Jimbo's personal appeal as well, so why does that get to go at the top of every page, but an election notice doesn't? --Victim of signature fascism | help remove biblecruft 23:51, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Non-editors are capable of contributing money. They aren't eligible to vote in the ArbCom elections. —David Levy 00:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I see the election advertised often enough. Please don't encourage them.
Really, though. Any active Wikipedia user will run into it. Casual browsers may not, but they're also not likely to care, eh? It's certainly more of a good-faith effort than the one column-inch ads in trashy community papers that somehow qualify as service of legal process in some places :) Adrian Lamo · (talk) · (mail) · 03:56, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Out of interest in which direction am I meant to be trying to rig the election?Geni 04:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Svartalf

Can an admin move the Svartalf to the withdrawl section. He's retracted his nomination. Superm401 | Talk 02:19, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll take care of it. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 02:23, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suffrage Requirements for Candidates

There was a more general discussion of this a few days ago at #Inexperienced candidates, but I'd like to focus things a bit. What do people think about requiring candidates in future ArbCom elections to have suffrage in the election they run in? I think it's a completely reasonable requirement, not because users without suffrage shouldn't be on ArbCom (though in my strong opinion they shouldn't), but because they seem to be overwhelmingly losing in this election, and as such their candidacies are a waste of time for voters and themselves. Superm401 | Talk 03:30, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

1000 edits in order to run. More than that and they will know that anyone with less than say 5000 is unlikely to get enough support.Geni 03:44, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
You've answered across my question, rather than at it. :) Are you saying suffrage requirements should be kept the same but candidate requirements should be raised to 1000 edits? Superm401 | Talk 04:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes. I had to put together the sub pages for all those no hope candidates.Geni 08:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I think that's reasonable, but you might have trouble getting others to agree. Superm401 | Talk 09:40, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
after the results this year? I don't think they will be able to put together much of a case.Geni 09:48, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Personally I think that rather than some arbitrary amount of edits, the criterion should be that the user already be an admin. If you look at EMS's table above, you'll see that no non-admin gets more than one-third support, and that the lowest-ranking twenty-seven candidates are all non-admins. See also WP:SNOW (by which I don't mean we should remove them now, but that they should have been told in advance they wouldn't have had a chance). Radiant_>|< 10:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I can think of a small number of non admins who would have a theoretical chance. The 1000 edit mark is handy because it means that most of the people who would be aloowed to run but don't have a chnace know this. At the same time it is well below the edit count that any linkely sucessful candidate would have.Geni 11:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Everybody has a theoretical chance, but the question is if they have a practical chance. Netoholic, Sam Spade and Edivorce all thought they had a chance, but voting proves them wrong. Radiant_>|< 14:02, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Kim Bruning isn't an admin (anymore) and currently has 58% support. —Cryptic (talk) 13:32, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • As near as I can tell, The only reason Kim is not presently an admin is because he needs a wikibreak for study purposes, and has requested to be blocked for the time being, and deadminned so that he can't unblock himself. That doesn't count :) Radiant_>|< 14:02, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I at least was pretty certian that Netoholic and Sam Spade would fail. I suspect they both knew that this was almost certainly going to be the case. Edivorce has got more support than some admins. The non admins with the best chance are not likely to run (there is a reason they have never gone for adminship) however there is the posibilty that they would and that they would do well.Geni 15:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Such as who? Note that if those people decide to "go for it", they could easily run for adminship first with a minimum amount of fuss. If they have as much community trust as you state, they would easily pass that. Radiant_>|< 16:40, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Having initiated the #Inexperienced candidates section above and the #Complete_candidate_statistics refered to above, I most certainly support requiring sufferage as a minimal requirement. As for increasing the sufferage limit: I do not see much sense in that unless you want to restrict this election to very experienced users. I would point out that there does not seem the be overwhelming interest in the election overall, with Fred Bauder's total of 300 at this time probably being the tops. However, this does not preclude a higher candidacy limit.
    Just to repeat what I found above: Being an admin for the 3 months preceeding the request for candidates seemed to me to be the element that was most predictive of success. It seemed that in the process of earning an adminship and using it, going above 1,000 edits is almost inevitable. However, things did not work the other way around.
    As for edivorce, his showing demonstrates the power of a good candidate statement, but note that he was downrated by most people for lack of experience, and IMO it is not wise to select someone for this post without a record of actions to ensure that the person lives up to their hype. Therefore I see the 3-month adminship requirement as being both necessary and sufficient as a prerequisite for being an arbitrator. --EMS | Talk 04:10, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
No overwhelming interest in the election overall? Near as I can tell, 913 different users have cast at least one vote so far, and another 99 without suffrage have done so as well. —Cryptic (talk) 09:59, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Not really adminship is very different from being an arbcom member.Geni 04:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Geni; adminship should NOT be a prerequisite. If you have one of these respected users, why should they have to know three months in advance that they need adminship before being elegible for the Arbcom? Matt Yeager 04:23, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with G, MY: this should not be a prerequisite and is an(other) example of unnecessary meta:instruction creep. There are numerous Wikipedians who have made many thousands of edits (and who may not be Admins by choice, like me, or by consensus), and this proposal unnecessarily limits voter choices and obviates the experience and unique perspectives non-Admin candidates may bring. Alternatively, should we disqualify Admins who are controversial? No: an open election would be (and is) self-evident and the community should decide. If a voter has neither the patience not fortitude to wade through the many candidates and deliberate (and they have two weeks to do this), then they can move on to a candidate with whom they're more at ease with or not vote for them. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 08:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I this not as "instruction creep" but instead "qualification creep", and see it as being appropriate as Wikipedia matures. The goal is not to remove those who should not win, but instead those who obviously cannot win for quantatitively determinable reasons. Obviously "controversial" is hard to measure and does not neccesarily spell failure. In any case, I agree that it is best to let the people select from all qualified candidates. The goal of this is to eliminate a bunch of extra work that dedicated editors can do without. --EMS | Talk 20:01, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
How about a compromise? In order to run you either have to be an admin or find an admin to sponsor your nomination? It should still eliminate most of candidates seriously lacking in experience, while allowing highly qualified non-admins to run if they want to. I would note that someone who can't find at least one admin who supports their position as Arbcom is going to be pretty hopeless when put to a vote. Dragons flight 08:39, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Again, this is expanding the role of admin. Might it be enough to just simply ban self-nomination? I think we should try the simplest thing first. If that doesn't work, we then try something more radical. Regards, Ben Aveling 08:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with requirign arbitrators to be administrators - adminship is meant to be no big thing, and all this is trying to make it into something big (although I admit this is probably not the intention). The only requirement for candidacy imho should be suffrage, and I've seen no convincing arguments that the suffrage requirements that applied for this election should be changed. Thryduulf 10:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Having thought about this some more, I think the easiest and least instruction-creepish thing to do for next year, would be to create a big obvious text box at the top of the nomination page advising people that non-admins are extremely unlikely to get elected, or indeed get more than 20% support. This should likely warn off the newbies, and it doesn't prohoibit anyone from anything. Radiant_>|< 15:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
This is one among many points to note: there's no reason to highlight it in an obvious box when it is sufficient to list this among a plethora of other points/learnings – properly archived and summarised, perhaps in a primer – of prior elections. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 15:49, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I see a certain amount of resistance to my 3-months-as-an-admin proposal. I for one see several things that demand it:
    1. Noone who does not meet this requirement is doing well at all. So right off the bat it is meeting the practical requirement to distinguish between the viable and non-viable candidates.
    2. Becoming an admin demonstrates a willingness to be involved with the maintenance of Wikipedia and the ability to gain acceptance to a position of responsibility.
    3. Becoming an admin demonstrates a certain amount of commitment to Wikipedia, which is essential for a post such as arbitrator. Also making active use of an adminship over an extended period is evidence that you will see the arbitrator's job through.
    4. Being an admin for an extended period creates a record that others can use to judge your fitness to be an arbitrator. A number of candidates are being dragged down by their performance as an admin, and I find the prefereable to their being dragged down for being a bad arbitrator.
I must admit that I was surprised to have my table above point in such a direction, but in hindsight it makes sense. Let those who want to move up have the relatively easily gotten adminship as a "first rung", and create a record for themself that can be used to evaluate the person as they seek higher positions. I see nothing but good coming from this. If a person cannot be bothered to become an admin, I really fail to see why they would want to bother with becoming an arbitrator, or why we should support them without the adminship experience to evaluate them with. --EMS | Talk 06:57, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Which of those four things are a big problem? As far as I can see, the system is working just fine. Being an admin is good way to demonstrate suitability, but I doubt it's the only way. Eg Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal. Regards, Ben Aveling 01:45, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
The system works, but not well IMO. Wikipedia has an obligation not to have us looking at obviously unqualified candidates, and this standard appears to be an excellent filter. Also, I see your concern at this point as being hypothetical. I would like to see a specific case where this standard would interfere with the ability of someone desirable to be a candidate. As best I can tell, in this election it would not have interefered with the candidacy of anyone viable. It also seems to work better than the "X time in Wikipedia" and/or "Y edits done" standards or any combination of them. Simplicity and effectiveness -- What more should a filter of this sort have? --EMS | Talk 15:47, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
P.S. A related question is whether Jimbo would care to appoint as an administrator arbitrator someone who is not already an established administrator. It seems to me that if Jimbo only wants to appoint established admins as aribitrators, then it is silly to let those who do not rise to that rubicon and therefore would not be appointed to run. --EMS | Talk 20:01, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd be in favor of a quota for non-admin members of the arbitration committee. Perhaps two places on the committee to be reserved solely for suitably qualified non-administrators. Administrators tend to develop a certain administrator solidarity and it may sometimes take a non-admin arbitrator to say "hang on, this decision isn't quite right", and produce a result that would be more acceptable to the editors as a whole--most of whom are not administrators and have no aspirations to become one. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:25, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

That sounds nice. Now point to a few examples, please. --EMS | Talk 03:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that far from being barred from standing non-admions should be on the arbcom, if necessary through a quota, SqueakBox 00:16, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I would oppose any hard requirements in any way. Rule creep. Unoficially, anybody willing to be an arbitrator better have at least one year as admin, at least 5,000 edits, experience in dispute resolution, etc. But codifying those would not be wise I think. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:05, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I actually am somewhat sympathetic to this. The first thing that is interesting to note is that the requirements that you list above would disqualify Mindspillage, who in both percentage and support-oppose standings is the leader. (She has only been an admin since 4/05.) Indeed, I realized from her being in the lead that anything more than 2,500 edits (Mindspillage had ~7,500 when the elections were called) and 1 year in Wikipedia is absolutely not viable. I also found myself looking at things like the candidate who made 1 edit in 3/04 and then did not come back until 11/04. Given that, when is their "real" start date? In any case, there needs to be a standard. At the minimum, noone should be a candidate who lacks sufferage in the election itself, but IMO we can do better. However, such a standard needs to be
  1. simple,
  2. reflective of the candidate's viablity,
  3. reflective of the candidate's ability, and
  4. not very difficult to attain.
Those requirements IMO are met by the adminship requirement. Even just a current adminship requrement seems to sort the wheat from the chaff, and to so do better than any number of edits and/or time in Wikipedia requirement. --EMS | Talk 16:40, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] For whom?

For whom should I vote? There's so many! Can we do a poll on whom gets my vote? --Dangherous 14:31, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

No. You can trim the list someone by cheacking to see which candidates have a reasonable chance.Geni 14:50, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I have to disagree with Geni here. The poll way is the only way. freestylefrappe 01:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't a poll essentially be a minielection? — Ilyanep (Talk) 03:42, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course it is. BTW, have you not noticed with the "Dangherous" becomes if you drop the "h"? ;-) --EMS | Talk 04:15, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and my name is the reason why I'm not running for arbcom - people will get the wrong idea. ems57fcal, have you noticed that if you drop the "erous" from my usename, you get my initials (almost)? --Dangherous 16:22, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Too complex a process

I'm not sure whether I can vote or not, probably not because I am recent in terms of formal registation. I have no way of knowing what the candidates actually do. The process could be as simple as clicking a button, but instead involves an unfamiliar edit.

The process is also is also open to hijack. There are more than 800,000 registered users, but from the number of votes that seem to have been cast, anyone who could organise a few hundred voters could get control, at least of the Arbitration Committee.

--GwydionM 18:26, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

With due respect, but if you are unfamiliar with the edit button, you should definitely not vote in this election. That because editing pages is the only way of communicating on Wikipedia, besides being the only way of contributing to articles. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:41, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
it is pretty much imposible to organise wikipedians (which is why the final final version of the voteing page was sorted out in the half hour leading up to midnight). You would also have the problem of trying to organise that many wikipedians without me finding out about it.Geni 23:51, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Quite correct. With such a diverse worldwide community, organising wikipedians is even more difficult than herding cats (and I have tried to herd cats on some occasions). The chance of doing it without someone finding out and reporting it is practically zero. David | Talk 00:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Since only people who had at least 150 edits on January 9 and were registered by September can vote, the number is actually very much smaller than 800,000, and if you removed people who have been gone for months or years, it gets even smaller. Others might have a better sense of what it actually is (or an automated way of finding out?) but I would guess there'd be a few thousand potential voters total. If some malicious sort wanted to hijack the election in the manner you'd describe, they'd either have to have gotten started on their hijack months ago (before we'd even determined the voting process), or they'd have to somehow recruit from among existing Wikipedians without anyone noticing, both of which seem extremely unlikely. Most of the people who are tuned in enough to process and policy to care about the arbcom have, in fact, voted, and very few other people, I suspect. My view is that overall it's gone pretty well. By the way, GwydionM, since you registered on October 18 you're not eligible to vote. Even more by the way, I know your father's work well and am an admirer. Chick Bowen 23:58, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Wrote this before an edit conflict with Geni. We are in agreement. Chick Bowen 23:58, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Votes just past the deadline

I noticed one or two of these which came in at 00:00. I wonder if they are allowed to stand on the basis of the "standing in line when voting ended" rule which is sometimes used in public elections? Or are they barred on the grounds of strict deadlines? David | Talk 00:09, 23 January 2006 (UTC) (Update: I see one of them has been reverted by the voter on the grounds of having missed the deadline)

I'm not sure, but I'm going to go ahead and protect all the voting pages now. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:33, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
P.S. All voting pages are now protected. For any votes that were after the deadline, I would just say to tag them. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:42, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd say let the 0:00 ones through, assuming in good faith that the "save page" key was hit at 23:59:59. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 01:31, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like a reasonable thing to do. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:38, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Oops, must have misread that comment - I thought it said that it came in after the deadline, like at 00:15 or something. My bad. :-) 00:00 seems fine; we should just leave them. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:41, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another results log

I've posted a summary of ranking results by percentage, net votes, and support votes here. It also includes sorted rankings by administrator votes only, just for an interesting comparison. At this point in time I've only included candidates who reached the 50% community approval minimum. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 04:37, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The big question is now, when will Jimbo come and decide what to do about all this arbcom election. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:48, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, here you go: [3]. Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:58, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
OKay, so if I read well, Jimbo followed exactly the results of the community vote, and in addition, James F., Fred Bauder, and Jayjg, who did rather well in the election, will also continue as arbitrators.
Also, some of the new appointees will serve thre years, some two years, and some one year, with the people who got higher vote percentage serving longer (the alpha, gamma and beta groups).
Congrats are in order for the new arbcom members. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:50, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Could someone please explain to me why the order is alpha, gamma, beta? It's called the alpha-bet for a reason... (Though alphagam sounds good, as well. ;)) —Nightstallion (?) 08:02, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Matter of rotation. The original "alpha" tranche was swapped out first, so now they're at the end of the line. Radiant_>|< 12:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
    Aaaah. Okay, thanks. —Nightstallion (?) 12:59, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A question about Questions

I know the voting is closed (I don't think I have enough edits anyway), but I wanted to check out the 'questions' page I'd read was available for each candidate. I've been searching for about 20 minutes but I can't find them, is there a trick to getting there?--Anchoress 15:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

On Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Vote, go to each candidate section, click on the link to their voting page. Top of that page is their candidate statement again, then a link to their Questions page. Should be mostly (all?) of the form [[Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_January_2006/Candidate_statements/***]] -- KTC 16:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much. I had been to all the pages you identified (except the Questions pages) but somehow I missed the linked text, 'Questions'. Thanks again.--Anchoress 04:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../a/r/b/Wikipedia_talk%7EArbitration_Committee_Elections_January_2006_Vote_ce53.html"